Creative Potato Salad - June 2011 Daring Cook Challenge

Daring cooks were asked to be creative with their potato salad this month, by Jami Sorrento.

The demonstration of different potato salads and tips and ideas are here.

My family love a good potato salad, and normally when I mention the word potato salad, they go for the traditional version.  So I made one just like what I normally would make:

Potato Salad with Mayonnaise, Eggs, Bacon and Onions
6 Desiree Potatos, boiled, cooled in colander to reduce liquid, and peeled, cut in cubes
4 Eggs, hard boiled and cut in wedges
10 Capers, finely chopped
sea salt and cracked black pepper
2 stripes of bacon
1 small brown onion
4 tbsp mayonnaise (whole egg mayo from shop or home made)
1 tbsp Dijion mustard

This is a very simple salad, and a lot of Aussie families have their own version of this salad, especially with the back yard barbeque.
The best potato to use in this salad will actually be baby chap, but since I've got a lot of desiree on  hand.
When potatoes and eggs are cooled and cut, pan fry the bacon and onion till fragrant and brown, put on top of the potato and eggs, add salt and cracked black pepper, capers, and the mayo and mustart, stir through,

 add a bit of herbs, if I do it for a party for adults, I'd normally add dill, parsley and chive, but when serving at home, I know the children don't like a lot of herbs so I just added some chives.

Serve with roast leg of lamb.

The second salad I made was a couple of nights later, more fit for adults and more mediterranean flavour.

Pan Roasted Spicey Potato Salad with Garden Greens

For the spice mix for the potatoes, I used smoke paprika, nutmeg, cinnamon, dry herbs (parsley, oregano, thyme), salt and cracked black pepper, lemon zest, (I would have addedn cajun peppers but I had a very hot and spicey lunch and decided to leave the heat out).

Potatoes are skinned and cubed, steamed and dried.

Heat up some extra virgin olive oil and add in potato cubes, add spices and coat them well, set aside to cool.

The rest of the salad is endive leaves, a couple, 1 cubed lemonese cucumber, 3 small riped tomato, 1 small avocado, a couple baby carrots - blanched, feta cheese.

Salad dressing is vinegarette made of 1 tbsp lemon myer juice, 1.5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, salt and cracked pepper and 1 tbsp maple syrup (or honey). 

Whisk very well until well combined and dressing look a bit pale yellow, smooth and milky look.  

Stir through.


We had aged scotch fillet for dinner with the salad, and garlic yoghurt sauce for the steak.

Edible Savory Containers - Daring Cook's Challenge April 2011 - Part II

I haven't made pies for a while, but since it's an edible container, pies, the one of the oldest "take away" boxes, I can't help making pies, for this challenge.

A proper pie for 1, in Australia, is puff pastry top, and short crust pastry bottom, with fillings in there, which can be beef mince, veggies, chicken, whatever. 

I came across some of the cute pie tins on sales, bought some, and it's time to make some proper size pies, using muffin tins usually give me smaller than normal pies. 

For the pastry, I resulted again in Maggie Beer's recipe,

her rough puff pastry.

and sour cream pastry.

I made 2 different sizes, the small ones I used my trust worthy silicon muffin tin, just the right size for party pies, for the children.  I used very simple ingredients, beef mince, diced potatoes and peas and corn.  Flavour was simple as well, passata and worcestershire sauce.

For the adult pies, I used chorizos, kalamata olives, onions, beef mince, pasley, dill, green chilli, potatoes, peas, corns and apart from passata and worcestershire sauce, I added a tiny bit of cumin powder and paprika, just to give it a bit of kick.

The filling was cooked and then cooled.

Once pies were made (bottom with sour cream pastry and top with puff pastry), brush on egg wash.

Bake in 190C oven for 30 minutes or till golden brown, top pastry puffed up.

I must say that the pastry was soooo lovely, and children loved their pies, and we loved ours!

Edible Savory Containers - Daring Cook's Challenge April 2011 - Part I

Thanks to Renata of Testago, Provado e Aprovado! and Evelyne of Cheap Ethinic Eatz we have a very imaginative challenge this month with a task to design Edible Savory Containers.  The original recipe guide is here, but it's open to all ideas!


How much fun is that... Loads of ideas, traditional ones, including spring rolls, rice paper rolls, wraps, pita pockets, pies, pasties, pamesan baskets....


The first part of the challenge, I did bread.  Well, after all, I love bread making.

Instead of making 2 Pumpkin Loaves, I made some Pumpkin Buns for my Roast Pumpkin Smoked Salmon Salad with Honey Lemon Dressing.

Buns were shaped and proofed again in my pie tins and spread on the pepitas.

They were then sliced and hollowed out.  I kept the lids.

Plating up, and they were cute...

Pumpkin in pumpkin?  But I love pumpkins....

February Daring Cook Challenge - Soba Noodle Salad & Tempura

February's Daring Cook Challenge was hosted by Lisa from Blueberry Girl.  She challenged everyone to do a lovely healthy dinner, the very oriental Soba Noodle Salad & Tempura.  The original PDF recipe is here.

1 month ago, hubby had some pain on the left foot, and after all the painful tests and X-rays, we are notified by the doctors that there's some health concern, he should cut back on meat, fats etc.  So I decided to do a very clean dish for the challenge, with light batter for the tempura.

So instead of doing the batter, I just used some egg white, dip the zucchini slices and mush room slices in them, and rolled them in a bowl of self raising flour, with a bit of white pepper and salt, a dry batter.

They turned out to be just what I want, very light and great accomplishment to a very healthy salad. 

To go with the soba noodles, some sliced Lebanese cucumbers and Roma tomatoes, and corriander.

Dressing is made of mirim, wasabi noodle sauce, a bit of soy and sesame oil, some pickled ginger and daikun, and some sauce from the pickles.

I added a poached egg to add some protein to the vegetarian dish.

Lamb Shank Confit & Cassoulet - First Daring Cook's Challenge in 2011

January Daring Cook's Challenge was hosted by Jenni from The Gingered Whisk and Lisa from Parsley Sage, Dessert and Line Drives, it's a cook off of a Confit and a Cassoulet.  Recipe is here.

I decided to do lamb shanks, and only 2 of them because it's summer here and we are not really keen on big pots of winter food.

However, the effort worth it, it's a very tasty dish, and we will do it a lot when winter comes.

It's a 3-4 day cooking process, and I started with rubbing the salt to the lamb shanks, leave it over night, in my case, in the fridge.

The next day, I added rosemary, thyme, bay leaves and cracked black peppers.   Added duck fat (from the roast ducks I did before) and cooked the confit in 180C oven for an hour.

Mean while, soaked the great northern beans in pot.

The third day, I took most of the duck fat out of the pot, lined the pot with bacon (I didn't use pork rind, just bacon with rind),

added pan fried Italian sausages, onions and beans, and some stock to cover.

Cook the cassoulet in 180C oven for an hour, and then 120C oven for another hour.

I must admit that it wasn't pleasant cooking that day as it was a hot 35C day!



The fourth day, it was cooler and the time to enjoy our cassoulet.  I cooked it again, took the whole pot out of fridge, wait till it warm to room temperature and cooked it in 180C oven for another hour.

Serve with home made sourdough bread....

Poach to Perfection - December Darinng Cook Challenge, Poached Egg on Poached Salmon & Prawns Salad with Lemon Herb Vinegarette Dressing

The December Daring Cook Challenge is very versatile, hosted by Jenn from Jenn Cuisine, and Jill  
(jillouci), it's all about the poaching technique.

Please refer to the original recipe for the challenge here.  

However, I thought I should be a bit cheeky and do an all poaching dish - it's summer here in Australia, and a nice light summer salad for dinner with loads of lean protein and fresh vegies, is just what we need.

Poached Egg on Poached Salmon & Prawns Salad with Lemon Herb Vinegarette Dressing:

Serve: 2

2 fresh eggs, free range eggs preferred.
2 x 250g skinless salmon portion
16 Green Banana Prawns (these are native to Australia, any medium size prawns will do)
buffalo mozzarella - 200g
1 Cos Lettuce heart
bunch of baby radish, cleaned and sliced

Dressing:
Fresh dill
Fresh mint
Dijion mustard (I used the smooth version, seeded version can be used)
Juice of one lemon
olive oil

Prawns were poached first, in water only with shell on, then they are cooled and de-shelled.
Separate the lettuce and sliced radish into 2 dinner plates.
Add prawns to the vegetables. 
Shred the buffalo mozzarella (it's a treat for us as we don't usually have it, if there's no buffalo mozzarella, ricotta cheese or good Greek Fetta cheese will do)
Then I poached the salmon, in vegetable stock with white wine, onion halves and carrot.

Shredded salmon into rough chunks after poaching and add to the dinner plates.
The last bit of poaching is the eggs.  They were poached individually in the swirl of water, in low heat on stove top. I liked them runny so it only took 2-3 minutes?  Add them onto the top of the pile.
Then I made the vinegarette and drizzle onto the salad.

Voila....